Should professional temperament be considered by licensing bodies? 7

[PM]

It has been claimed that mastery of technology is all that is necessary in order to practice Professional Engineering. All the engineering registries I'm aware of currently examine membership candidates for advanced technical knowledge, special skills and some consideration of personal character. In a generic sense, this is common to all professional licensing organizations. No doubt this is relates to the "self governing" nature of an individual's practice.

Should a Professional's temperament, character, ethics (or whatever other way you want to describe it) continue to be assessed, or should expert knowledge and skill be the only relevant prerequisite for the right to practice Professional Engineering?

Regards,

 

[chubPE]

And whom will be doing the assesment of the "temperment?"

 

[PSE]

I would think that temperament would be self-governing to a certain degree. The success of one's practice would or hopefully should be related to their strength of character.

Regards,

 

[PM]

Yes, but what is the best method of keeping individuals of weak or poor character out of your professional association?

Regards,

 

[Ron]

This profession, as with all others, will NEVER be able to completely negate the inclusion of "weak or poor character" individuals. There are numerous reasons for this. First and foremost; there is no means of true, unbiased assessment and no mechanism to enforce it. Secondly, people change. One who is licensed today as a "fresh-faced", "wet-behind-the-ears" engineer with idealism written all over him, could tomorrow become a jaded, cynical ax murderer (literally or figuratively). We have no control over the individual psyche.

The best we can hope for is to create an atmosphere of desiring to comply with an acceptable standard of practice and ethical approach to the engineering professional in specific and life in general.

 

[Ron]

Sorry...had to ditch out for a short time, but I'll finish my answer....

Yes, I think we should continue to ask the character questions in the application/licensing process. While it isn't likely that you'll catch very many on the negative side, you at least get an affirmation of character on the positive side. The nature of engineers is to be soft on people and critical of performance and "things".

 

[swertel]

PM,

One of the ways that engineers maintain their status of professional is through peer-review. Engineering state licensure is one of the strictest and most "big-brothery" than any other licensing board. That is one reason why we must have x-number of years of experience before becoming licensed and not just take an examination at the end of our undergraduate courses.

A started a thread (thread765-38888) that has some links to issues about this very subject. At the time, I felt it better to be in a separate thread, but now I'll reference it here. It is currently on part 2 of 4.
thread765-38888 is about developing relationships between engineers and design groups (the nice way of saying "the engineers who aren't really engineers but call themselves engineers&quot. The first two parts describes the history of engineering and what it takes to be an engineer as opposed to just calling yourself one.

--Scott
Engineer-in-Training

 

[gibfrog]

I feel very strongly that liscensing should only depend upon technical competance. Some of the education requirements are bizarre (In FL, for a foreign degree, 16 humanities & social science credits w/ a maximum of 6 in languages, except your native tongue). Temperment & character questions are kind of self regulating. If you have a foul temperment, then no clients. If you are a cheat, then no clients and/or bad reputation and/or legal problems.

I have noticed that it is not uncommon, for an PE in his 70's or 80's to practice plans stamping. These fellows, may have had a stellar carreer, but when you need money, ethics tend to lose. (Note, many younger engineers also have low ethics) And every time you sell a piece of your your soul, the next time it is just easier.

If one did some crime and paid the time, why not let them become an engineer. They could become a laywer or a doctor.

For all you christians out there, did not Jesus say "who is without sin, let him cast the first stone." As a Jew, I believe in forgiveness and human fraility.

I was appalled, when I read in the fbpe.org website, under agenda minutes, about a PE candidate, who answered all the chracter questions honestly, had no conviction, but had "ajudication withheld" for some felonies (there are alot of felonies here in Florida) and was denied the priviledge to take the exam. Remember, visit Florida on vacation and go home on probation. This is one hard ass state and if you can not afford good legal counsel you get all the justice that you can afford.

I wonder, how many in our profession could go under the professional/legal/judicial microscope and come out unsinged?
Clifford H Laubstein
FL Certified PE #58662

 

[curvbridger]

Like it or not, people are integrated beings. Personal character is not seperable from professional conduct. Since engineers hold a public safety position, it is unreasonable to say that felons, having demonstrated a disdain for law and society, should be trusted to exercise due care in performing their work.

curvbridger

 

[StephenEd]

Not too long ago, they did a face-to-face interview with everybody (during the PE exam). I'm not sure how they incorporated the "score" but I know they don't do it any longer.

 

[MASSEY]

Temperament, character, and ethics are not all the same thing. Character and ethics are closely related and should be considered for licensing. You can test one's character by asking ethics based questions.

Temperament is a different issue and should not be considered. A normal work day tests one's temperament and if an individual is found with an adverse temperament they usually are found looking for a new job.

Many people with unique temperaments eventually go into business for themselves, hence the need for a PE license.

I seen people go from job to job because of their temperament and then start their own business and turn out very successful at it.

A persons' character determines their ethics. Temperament is not related to either.

 

[jstickley]

I think a question that begs answering more so than should a person's character be assessed as a prerequisite to professional licensure is how should a person's character be assessed? I think that when you look at how you might assess character, you come up with better guidelines for which professional licensure and registration could be withheld.

Examinations (test questions)? Hardly. Exams can test knowledge of ethics, but this does not equate to assessment of character. After all, a person could simply answer the questions dishonestly, seeking to illustrate that they do have "good" character.

Interviews? The same issue applies -- a person of "poor" character could very easily lie to the interviewers. Also, interviews are hardly going to be uniform as the interviewers will not always be the same people. Even if they were, they would not always judge everyone by the same standard (that's a simple fact of human nature).

Criminal background examinations? That's about as objective as you can get, in my opinion. But who's to set the standard as to what kind of violations limit your ability to obtain professional registration? All crimes are not equal, after all. Should the engineer who has a DWI on his record be refused professional licensure? Should the engineer who has a drug violation on his record be refused? Should the engineer who has an assault on his record be refused? What about other crimes?

I think you get my point. The bottom line, in my personal opinion, is that objectively testing character in an attempt to refuse professional licensure to those who MIGHT do something in the future that will jeopardize public safety through their work is a very difficult proposition.

That being said, I do believe that there is a legitimate reason for which professional licensure should be refused, that being when the individual has a proven background of ethical violations (so long as that determination was somehow made in an objective manner). The same applies to a licensed professional engineer -- if you prove to be an unethical individual that jeopardizes public safety through your position as a licensed engineer (as determined by some sort of objective process), your licensure should be revoked.

I guess what I'm saying is that professional licensure and registration is a privilege, one that carries ethical responsibilities. Because it's very difficult to determine in advance whether an engineer seeking licensure will uphold those responsibilities, you almost have to grant the privilege to all technically competent individuals, and revoke the privilege when individuals demonstrate that they are not up to the task of upholding all the responsibilities the privilege carries.

 

[GregLocock]

Many good points have been made, but frankly this question seems slightly absurd to me, but perhaps we don't take professional ethics as seriously as you do in North America.

(1) If the licensing authority refuse to license an otherwise qualified candidate because it doesn't like his temperament I would hope he would take the licensing authority to court and sue them into dust.

(2) If society thinks that a person has been punished for a crime then I really don't think that a licensing authority has a responsibility or the authority to impose additional penalties.

Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[jstickley]

Greg --

Gotta agree with you on your first point. Temperament is an issue almost completely unrelated to character/ethics.

However, I disagree on your second point. The licensing body is not, in my opinion, imposing additional penalties aside from those imposed by the laws of the society, but imposing penalties in accord with those of the laws of society. When a person is punished for a crime by law, quite frequently they lose some privileges (for example, DWI will often result in the revokation of the individual's driving privileges). Loss of professional licensure is, in my opinion, just another privilege that is lost due to violation of society's laws. What crimes are cause for loss of professional licensure is another question altogether. For that matter, so is the question of when an engineer who has had his licensure refused or revoked have the opportunity to re-apply or renew his registration.

 

[GregLocock]

Well I suppose we need some concrete examples. The reason I won't join the Institute of Engineers in Australia is that they gave one of their members a very hard time for publicly criticising a publicly funded project that had been signed off by some other members. That disgusts me.





Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[PM]

Not to get overly focused on specific words, but I used the word "temperament" in the sense of " . . .a person's distinct nature and character especially as determined by physical constitution and permanently affecting behaviour . . ." [Concise Oxford Dictionary, 8th Edition]. I hope you all appreciate that temperament, character and ethics are all related and therefore intended to convey one general concept rather than a series of mutually exclusive ideas.

I take GregLocock's Jan 2nd points about N.Americans (esp. in the last 5 decades) taking ethical issues somewhat more seriously than some others, and particularly since Sept. 11, but I doubt the issue is absurd in the nuclear era. I have no doubt there are subtle cultural differences on this point; the well known defference to authority amoung English Canadians, versus the sometimes agressive sceptisicim of authority among US citizens for example. I'm sure there are reasonable arguments that can be made suggesting the degree of intolerance among N. Americans is becoming severe however, it seems only responsible for citizens to question the ethical values of those persons that make life and death decisions on their behalf.

There seems to be two notions developing from this thread, namely:[ol][li]anyone with technical competency should have a right to practice, and[/li][li]only those with technical competency and exceptional ethical values should have the priviledge of practicing.[/li][/ol]I'd like to suggest one correction to GregLococks comments on professional lisencing bodies "imposing additional penalties". Rejecting a candidate for right to practice is not a punishment any more than a professional sports manager relegating a player to the minor leagues. At most it could be described as negative reinforcement. In both cases the motive is protection of the public. In the engineering case, the public needs to be confident that only highly skilled and ethical practitioners are lisenced. In the second case, the public needs to be sure only the best players compete at the highest level. So if an engineer is known to violate laws, it's a safe bet he/she is not sufficiently ethical and therefore may no longer be trusted to act in the public interest at critical moments. Criminal sanctions or punishments that an individual may or may not have suffered are irrelevant to the question of protecting the public from unethical engineering. If a lisencing body can no longer be confident of an engineer's ethics, they must protect the public by preventing him/her to practice.
Regards,

 

[MASSEY]

OOPS! I guess they are related.

When I think of temperament I think of personality or how one gets along with others.

Obviously someone can be a social misfit, recluse, loner, or a stuck up conceited snob and still be an ethical person.

I like ethics questions on tests, they are easy to answer and fun to think about, but if ethics, character, and temperament are the same thing, then they should not be considered for the practice of Professional Engineering.

 

[PSE]

At least here in the states, anyone who has technical competency will have the opportunity to practice providing they can secure a position. We have the industrial exemption that allows the vast majority of engineers to practice unlicensed. It has been my experience that character assessment is contained as part of one's annual performance review. Interpersonal skills can have a direct impact on salary increases and promotion opportunities. I will state that one may have excellent interpersonal skills yet still be unethical and vice versa. However a well developed review system should be capable of flagging examples of poor character or unethical behavior. I could probably start a whole new thread on review systems!

For an licensed individual working within a company, the annual review will still occur with subsequent continued evaluation of character development. This would be in addition to any oversight by a licensing body.

Outside of Industry (a person self-employed or incorporated), only the oversight of the licensing body comes into play so I do believe they have an important role to play in character and ethical assessment. Market forces will likely show the continued success of the individual from the standpoint of customers being satisfied with working with the individual (reputation establishment) and hopefully providing such feedback to the licensing body.

Regards